


Written by the Victors

by DragonflyxParodies



Series: A Fable, Agreed Upon [1]
Category: Winx Club
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alfea is an Actual College, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bloom Does Not Like Being Babied, Bloom swears, Censorship, Gen, Or Being Lied To, Tecna is only mentioned, but i can't help it, but she is out here being an absolute boss, complete and utter lack of faith in the system, i know its cliche, im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:00:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29475852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonflyxParodies/pseuds/DragonflyxParodies
Summary: Alfea is great - as magical and frightening and beautiful as she imagined. The only downside is, it's not all that different from Earth. People didn't like Bloom asking so many questions there, either.In which Bloom decides to take matters into her own hands, and earns herself a couple of Super Secret Study Buddies.
Relationships: Bloom & Icy (Winx Club), Bloom & Stella (Winx Club), Bloom & Stormy, Bloom & Tecna (Winx Club)
Series: A Fable, Agreed Upon [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2165049
Comments: 12
Kudos: 39





	Written by the Victors

**Author's Note:**

> So. the Winx are actually 18/19 here - college aged grown ass adults. The Trix are then 22. This is important for a variety of reasons, mostly (1) i wanted to and (2) it fits so much better with the conflicts I have planned for this AU. This won't really shit on the Winx girls either; there will be ~conflict~ but I'm not out to bash any character as irredeemable or anything. I pinky promise.

She’s alone – realizes she hasn’t been _left_ alone damn near since she told Headmistress Faragonda her name – and so she doesn’t bother hiding the outright double-take she does when one of the witches who’ve been after Stella fall into line beside her.

She’s not dressed in the jumpsuit she’s been in every other time they’ve – met? Fought? _Seen each other_. Just a collared burgundy crop top and a navy skirt studded with silver, hair swept up into twin buns and platform-heeled boots that come up to mid-calf.

Bloom is in line at a coffee shop. So is the witch, apparently.

“Uh. Stormy, right?” She asks. The woman doesn’t go rigid, exactly, but the air around her falls so still Bloom winces involuntarily as she oh-so slowly turns her entire body to stare at her.

Stormy grimaces, expression flickering through a half-dozen variants of disgust and surprise before settling on disdain. It’s – kind of impressive, how quickly she masks herself.

“What do _you_ want?”

Bloom nearly blanks, for an instant. But – she’s got a list mashed into the very bottom of her bookbag for a reason, and Tecna is the only person she thinks would give her straight answers except when Bloom had asked how biased her sources were Tecna had _literally short-circuited_ and it’s just –

She misses Earth. Everybody knew school was bullshit there. Nobody here _does_.

“Can I ask you a kind of awkward question?”

She gets absolute silence, and a carefully blank look.

“Why me?”

“No offense. But you and your – um? Friends? – know where I’m from.”

“I’m not _helping you_ , pixie. If you have Earth problems – “

“No, I mean – can you tell me what a witch even _is?”_

There’s a spark of electricity and oh _fuck_ she made the _witch_ short-circuit too what the _fuck –_

“Are you _serious –_ “ Stormy cuts herself off, and Bloom isn’t really upset by that because, yeah, she is, and yeah, she’d have been concerned if the witch hadn’t mocked her, but – Stormy’s laughter is loud and crackly and –

Everybody is staring. Bloom plasters on a tight smile and does not make eye contact with anybody else.

A hand slaps her shoulder, the barest shock of static electricity zinging through her body, and Bloom nearly jumps, except Stormy’s shoving her towards the bar and a barista is calling out both their names and Bloom decides to just go with it. They’re in public, she doesn’t have Stella’s ring, it’ll be _fine_.

Stormy manhandles her into a booth tucked into the back of the shop, and then proceeds to throw back her entire drink – double the size of Bloom’s own tea – without pausing to breathe or swallow. It’s more than a little impressive.

She flings the used cup over her shoulder – a flash of gold magic snags it and redirects it towards the nearest trashcan. Then steeples her fingers in front of her and stares at Bloom like she’s trying to bore holes through her head.

Bloom smiles weakly.

“Nobody told you? Aren’t you here _for_ an education?”

“They’re not very forthright about things they think are dangerous. Faculty, I mean. Stella’s been very upfront about what she thinks you all are. Not that she’s wrong, or anything, but it’s clearly not the whole story.”

“And you care why?”

“I – right, you’re not from Earth. Um.”

Bloom takes a sip of her tea and grimaces reflexively, and then sets it to the side and hunches forward.

“Public education is mandated in my country. Most of that education is bullshit to make my country look less shitty, because they don’t like coping to the genocide or war crimes or the rape or the slavery or the eugenics or so on. But we have the internet. So. It’s – not very hard to tell when a textbook is lying to you. Or when a teacher is.”

“What.”

“I get evil’s your whole thing, but I highly doubt Magix would be running a school for like, magic terrorists or whatever, right next to their schools for heroes and faries.”

Stormy’s eyes are huge, and she ducks her head for a moment. Bloom’s pretty sure she mouths _terrorists_ to herself, but she doesn’t know what the magic equivalent is and doesn’t really care to find out.

She takes another sip of her tea and doesn’t pull a face, and by the time she’s put it back down Stormy’s apparently composed herself.

“We draw power from a different source. Fairies draw on the power of their homeworld and their own magical core; we use our own willpower and outside sources.”

“So what’s the difference, exactly? You’ve got ambient electricity, which sounds pretty innate to me.” Stella literally _sparkles_ when she’s happy. Bloom has started, unfortunately, setting herself and things around her on fire when she’s surprised. There’s no intent behind these things; surely that can’t be what Stormy is getting at?

“I only passed my classes because of my sisters, pixie. I am _not_ a nerd.”

Well, yeah. Stormy’s got _muscle_ , and Bloom’s been trying to avoid staring since she caught sight of the witch. But –

“Sisters. Wait, so covens are a thing?”

Stormy puts her face in her hands, and Bloom’s fairly certain she’d start screaming if – well, actually, _why_ isn’t she? Stormy doesn’t seem the type to care that they’re in public. Maybe she just doesn’t want to get banned from the café? Bloom’s inherent dislike of _beverages_ aside, the tea is shockingly good. Maybe whatever Stormy had is too.

“What the fuck are they _teaching_ you?”

“That’s why I asked, thanks. Do you think they censor the library? Or – wait, no, there’s a restricted section, they absolutely do. I’m going to just have to break in, aren’t I?”

She doesn’t really mean to ask the last part out loud. She rakes a hand through her own hair and sighs, slumping back into her booth.

Stormy is scowling at her.

“I wanna know more about this Earth thing. Wherever you’re from.”

“The – history?”

“I’ll give you Icy’s number, you can bug her. But Earth’s supposed to be _boring_ , that doesn’t sound _boring_.”

“See, I appreciate the offer, but I’m fairly certain Icy would outright kill me if I texted her.”

Stormy gives her a pitying look, and _reaches out and pats her hand_.

“She’s had multiple chances to do so already and hasn’t, pixie. If she wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

That’s. Oddly flattering.

Stella will literally kill her if she finds out. Musa might get it, maybe Tecna, but they _would_ take her phone from her anyway.

But she _could_ just put her in under a pseudonym. And even if Icy lies or whatever too – which, if Icy and her sisters hate fairies in general, they _might_ but Bloom’s willing to bet the fact that Alfea isn’t teaching things properly is doing enough to make fairies look bad on its own – she can compare it to what Alfea says and just…extrapolate from there.

Either way, there’s no real _harm_ , is there? It isn’t like they can send spells through technology; Bloom had asked Tecna about magical spam-mail and gotten a fascinating forty-minute lecture on the topic the other day, because Tecna is the _only_ one who gets Bloom’s interest in weirdly specific knowledge about the magical realms and doesn’t just roll her eyes and change the subject, because Tecna is the _best_.

“…Okay. Yeah, I would appr—”

“If you thank me, deal’s off.” Stormy says sharply, eyes narrowing, and Bloom holds her hands up in surrender.

She leaves with _two_ new numbers in her phone under _study buddy_ and _elsa_ and a promise to meet back up at the café on the weekend _no matter what bullshit occurs in the meantime_ because Stormy is surprisingly intent on hearing alien history, and strict instructions not to text Icy first.

She’s in the midst of getting ready for bed when her phone starts ringing, and she stares at its screen for a good second before scrambling to pick it up.

“Are you fucking serious?” Icy’s voice asks sharply, and her disbelief is audible enough that Bloom snorts around her toothbrush.

“I – _ho’ on_ – “

She spits into the sink, and then damn near clocks herself in the face with her phone in her eagerness to get back to the conversation.

“Yeah. History was kind of my thing. I was gonna go to college for it.”

“You’ve got that Zenith—”

“I short-circuited her.”

There’s a brief silence, and then somebody starts laughing. Not Icy. Probably the third one – Darcy. Bloom isn’t put out by it; this whole situation is _batshit_ and she already knows these women are assholes. She’s been screaming into her pillow the past couple nights out of frustration; that somebody else is apparently so shocked by the situation that their first instinct is to _laugh_ is kind of…gratifying.

“You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack.”

_“What?”_

“Sorry! Earth saying! I – it’s an expression _!_ ” Faintly, she hears someone shout _I told you! earth’s actually interesting!_ and more laughter.

“…Right. Fine. But this has – “

“No bearing on the other stuff. Absolutely.”

There’s a beat. The laughter has died down to giggles, but it’s still audible.

“…Fine.”

“Fine.”

“…What?”

“St—she said I couldn’t say thanks.”

“Right.”

There’s another silence. Bloom’ face is so hot she can _feel_ it, and she mashes the end-call button before things get even weirder.

When she turns around, Flora’s robe, hanging innocently off the hook on the back of their shared bathroom door, is on fire.

_“Oh c’mon!”_

**Author's Note:**

> This ~mostly~ follows canon, up until the dance episode - the Trix never throw down with Bloom and so she's not actually fought them outside of the whole Stella's Ring situation yet. So, they can compartmentalize pretty easily, also it helps that Bloom's some mildly interesting dumbass to the Trix and not a threat/real person of interest. From there on out; they're 'kinda' friends. This changes things.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed ;) Honestly surprised I haven't written for Winx sooner and I'm kinda dismayed there's not as much fanwork as I expected on here, so as always, IMMA DO IT MYSELF.
> 
> Yes, I saw the Netflix show. Yes, I love it. No, it was not good. Yes, I recommend you check it out. No, I don't intend to base anything in this series (it's a series!) off of it except some of Riven's characterizations, because the show only did one thing right and he was it.


End file.
